


three kings

by Naraht



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aging, Chubby Katsuki Yuuri, Friendship, M/M, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9489593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: After retiring from competitive skating, Yuri Plisetsky goes to Hasetsu to train for Victor's ice show. A lot has changed, but the welcome he gets from Victor and Yuuri makes it feel like home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains mentions of minor injuries, weight issues and diets, and death (Yuri's grandfather). However it's not about any of these things.

The last time Yuri had arrived at the airport in Fukuoka, he had been fifteen, alone, angry and heartsick. Now he was twenty-six, and – fine, really. Surprisingly fine.

Yuri hoisted his sports bag a little higher on his shoulder – gingerly, remembering the old rotator cuff injury – and strode out into the arrivals hall. He'd just retired from competitive skating, that was all, it wasn't as if the world was coming to an end or anything. It wasn't even as if he was leaving the ice, not with Victor's new ice show starting in two months.

And there was Victor himself, standing right in front of the door, beaming and waving his arms like the idiot he was.

"Yura! Over here!"

Yuri allowed himself to be pulled into an overenthusiastic embrace. Indeed, he returned it.

"You big moron, Vitya," he mumbled against Victor's shoulder. _Still three centimeters taller, damn him._ "You're half a head taller than everyone else here and your hair's – whatever color you call that, only your stylist knows for sure. Did you really think I was going to walk right past you?"

"I missed you too," said Victor. He released Yuri from the hug, only to throw his arm around Yuri's shoulder instead and lean over to press his cheek to Yuri's. "Selfie!"

Yuri accepted the inevitable, put on his forced-into-publicity smile, and grabbed his phone to snap his own selfie. It didn't come out too badly. He added "arrived" as the caption, skipped tagging Victor (the man didn't need any more publicity), and quickly posted it to Instagram. That left a long wait while Victor was busy adding an ungodly string of hearts and weird emojis to his own photo.

It gave him a chance to study the picture. Not too bad. Long blond ponytail, a little more towards the dirty blond than it used to be. Squarer jaw than Victor's. A bit of stubble, partly from the long flight and partly the result of Yuri's decision to make it clear that he wasn't a teenager anymore.

And Victor was... Victor. Still with that goofy open-mouthed grin that had starred in a thousand selfies, which now also brought out the smile lines around his eyes. _Guess all those fancy moisturisers only do so much good,_ thought Yuri, and immediately felt churlish. Barring that and the slowly receding hairline, the man looked pretty damn ageless for... _thirty-eight? Could that really be right?_

"I'm so happy you came," said Victor, tucking his phone back into a jacket pocket after one final check of his notifications. "I didn't think you'd say yes."

"What else was I going to do next? Yakov's retired and Granddad's gone. There was no reason for me to stick around in Russia."

Hard to believe that the funeral was a year and a half ago now. Victor and Yuuri had flown out for it, right in the middle of the competition season. Forty days later Victor had come back for the memorial service. Not that his grandfather had cared much about religion; his mother was the believer, for all the good it ever had done her. 

If you put it the right way, it sounded like a chronicle of tragedy. Yakov retired, Grandfather dead, and his mother with yet another no-good boyfriend. As a child he'd always told himself that once he became a world champion like Victor, once he could afford to give her a house and money every month, things would be different. Nothing had been different: it had all gone up her nose, or the boyfriend's, same as usual. But it had been worth the investment. Now he knew. 

"Also you pay pretty well," he added grudgingly, mostly as a way of changing the subject. "It was either this or get a real job."

 _Because not all of us are exhibitionist media whores like you,_ he failed to say. Apart from the yearly ice show and the non-stop endorsements, which paradoxically seemed to have got even bigger after Victor's retirement, there was the massively hyped reality show, _Life and Love in Hasetsu_. Yuri would never admit it, but he had watched every episode, downloading the incomprehensible Japanese torrents months before the show aired in Russia and then, cursing himself, going to Victor's fansite to search out a dubious Russian translation. Thank God they weren't filming another season.

"If there are any money worries..." said Victor, looking concerned. "We can revisit the contract, it's no object really."

"No! I rented out my place, the cats are with Mila, it's fine. It's not like I have many expenses."

 _Apart from my shitty mother._ Not that her small monthly allowance put any real dent in his bank account. Not that it would have been any of Victor's business if it had.

He paused. It felt like Victor had been leading him to another point entirely, another admission. 

"I came because I wanted to come," said Yuri. "It sounded like fun, and it's not like anyone else knows what this is like. You know, retirement."

"Good," said Victor. "I'm glad. Come on, the car's just outside."

***

The car park was a little postage stamp of asphalt tucked into the cluttered jumble of Fukuoka City. Yuri looked around and tried to guess which car was Victor's. It would either be something swoopy and 007 style, or something pink. Maybe it would be both at once. But there were no pink cars in the lot, which meant...

Victor led him to a plain, dark blue Toyota Prius, and opened up the trunk so that Yuri could toss in his suitcase.

"Driving the Katsudonmobile today?" asked Yuri, getting into the passenger seat.

"We just have the one."

"You're kidding. Even _I_ have a Porsche now. I don't drive it very much, but I _have_ it."

"Good for you," said Victor, smiling to himself in an enigmatic way, as though he had discovered the secret of life but subsequently been forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He pulled out of the parking lot, a soundless acceleration. "Yuuri liked this one, he thinks it's good to be ecologically responsible. I didn't mind."

"He's still got you completely whipped, hasn't he?"

Impossibly, Victor's smile widened even further. "With pleasure."

Yuri waited until they'd made it onto the coastal highway before asking the question he'd had in mind since the arrivals hall: "Katsudon decided not to come to the airport?" 

"He wanted to, but he teaches his group classes in the morning. He'll meet us at the rink." Victor paused. "By the way, you're old enough to call him by his name now, aren't you? He'd like it if you did."

"Yeah, I guess." 

Yuri felt his jaw setting at the rebuke. He looked out the window at Hakata Bay, its encircling hills. He couldn't see why it mattered what he called the other Yuuri. It was tradition now, wasn't it? Not to mention less confusing. Why did Victor have to meddle in this stuff? Couldn't Yuuri say for himself if...?

Then he saw what Victor might be getting at. "He's really gotten fat, hasn't he?"

He expected Victor to deny it indignantly, still blindly in love with Yuuri. Instead he just laughed. "Pretty fat."

"Don't you mind?"

"Lifts are overrated; my back couldn't cope with them now anyway. And he can still land a backflip on ice in front of five thousand people, why would I mind?" OK, now he was getting heart-eyed. "Actually I think it's adorable."

Because this was Victor, what he meant by _adorable_ was _makes me want to fuck him even more than I did when we first met_. Which surely shouldn't have been possible.

"Well, whatever," said Yuri diplomatically, heading off any further details.

For a long time they drove in silence. Yuri gazed out at the passing city and enjoyed the luxury of thinking about nothing in particular.

"How is Otabek?" asked Victor out of the blue.

Yuri bit back an automatic retort. _What the fuck business it is of yours, old man?_

"How's Chris?" he said instead.

"Oh," said Victor. "Was it like that? I didn't know. I suppose I never asked."

"It is now."

"Oh," said Victor again. Silence. "Should I invite him, sometime, to join the show? Do you think he'd want to? I know he's doing a bit of skating back in Almaty..."

"Don't get ahead of yourself. Let's just make sure that the three of us can do this together without killing each other. We don't need any more moving parts."

"If that's what you call it, Yura." 

There was something impressive about Victor's ability to deliver an casual innnuendo while dealing with merging traffic on a Japanese highway at 120 kph. Yuri snorted with laughter. 

"Besides," he said, "aren't you planning to call this thing _Three Kings_?"

"Yes?"

"Well, you can't change it to _Four Kings_. That would just sound stupid."

Victor nodded to himself. "Unanswerable," he said, his tone poised delicately between amused and patronising. "Well, we'll see."

***

Seeing Katsudon again was weirder than he'd thought it would be. With his competition and touring schedule, they hadn't met in person since the funeral, although Yuri had followed him through Victor's Instagram, an endless stream of double selfies and giggly ice dancing rehearsals. Even without a timeline, you could have pieced together a decade's chronology from the steady expansion of Yuuri's waistline.

Even though Yuri had studied the photos, it was different seeing Yuuri there in the flesh, standing on the ice in a T-shirt and sweatpants, hands on his hips as he gave patient instructions to a big class of beginners. Hair messy, forehead lightly beaded with sweat, wearing his glasses... damn, were those the same glasses he'd had a decade ago? They might be.

And, yes, he was fat, his double chin well on its way to a triple. His belly had a distinct gravitas of its own. No trace now of narrow-hipped Eros. Though his ass was still pretty impressive.

Yuri glanced away, embarrassed. He was just very... _there_. All of him. It made Yuri not quite certain where to look.

Eleven years ago he would have reacted with anger and disgust and insults. It was gross, he was a loser, he'd let himself go, how could Yuuri have just given up on himself like that? 

But really, mostly, when he thought back on it, all the shouting at Yuuri had been a substitute for shouting at his own dick. Thank god he was no longer a teenager. Now he just leaned against the wall of the rink and watched Yuri finishing up his class.

"He's just telling them," said Victor, translating in a low tone, "that next time he's going to teach them a waltz jump."

Yuuri skated offhandedly away from his students and performed as pretty a waltz jump as you could ask. Yuri graced him with a few ironic claps.

"How old are they – eight, nine?" he said to Victor. "I had a double axel by then. Why is he wasting his time?"

"That's not the point," said Victor.

Yuri shrugged. "If he actually likes kids."

"I can see why you decided not to go into coaching," said Victor. He paused. "It makes two of us."

Finally Yuuri noticed them – deigned to notice them, thought Yuri. _He's known we were here all along, the jerk._

Now Yuuri was waving and Victor was waving back. Yuri waved too, a little self-consciously, because all the kids had turned to look. Yuuri said something in Japanese, and began to herd them off the ice. Yuri recognised his own name.

"He's saying, _Look at that_ ," translated Victor. " _It's Victor Katsuki and Yuri Plisetsky! Maybe you should go over and say hello_."

Yuri had never got used to the _Victor Katsuki_ thing. Victor had explained it all to him in excruciating detail at some point, back when he hadn't really cared all that much. Something about Japanese adult adoption, and tradition, and becoming a part of the family. So apparently now Hiroko and Toshiya were officially Victor's parents, which you would think Yakov and Lilia might have something to say about, but whatever.

Really Yuri suspected that Victor would have made up some bullshit excuse to take Yuuri's name, no matter what tradition demanded. He just liked the idea. He wanted to be Yuuri's, and to show everyone that he was Yuuri's. Nothing like sharing your kink with the world.

Ten years ago you might just have said that Victor had a habit of restless reinvention. _People who can be reborn as many times as necessary,_ Lilia had said, _are the strong ones._ But it was a decade later and Victor was still here, still Victor Katsuki. Maybe he just didn't feel the need to be the strong one anymore.

Yuri blinked, dragging himself back to the present, only to find that he had been surrounded by a crowd of small, enthusiastic children. Not one of them seemed to give a damn about Victor. Probably this was because they saw him around the rink all the time, but it also occurred to Yuri that not one of these kids had been alive when Victor had last competed. They probably thought of him, if they thought of him at all, as their coach's husband.

The smile that thought put on Yuri's face carried him through the inevitable round of selfie demands. By the time all the children were satisfied and running off to their parents with tales of their brush with skating greatness, Victor had donned his skates and was on the ice warming up alongside Yuuri.

Thank God. It meant they'd been spared the need for another excruciating reunion scene, with all those stupid decisions to be made – hug, kiss on the cheek, on both cheeks, manly handshake and a pat on the back? He thought that Yuuri was probably just as relieved as he was. Unlike Victor, dramatic kissy reunions weren't really his style.

"Yuri!" said Victor. "You've got to watch our new routine!"

"OK," said Yuri. "I'm ready. Give it to me."

Victor looked to Yuuri, nodded, and they began.

It wasn't pairs skating – there were no jumps worth mentioning. It wasn't even ice dancing – there were no lifts. What it was: impeccably choreographed, meticulously skated, with each edge change and breath coming in unison, and (even Yuri had to admit) meltingly, lyrically romantic. Despite the risk of errant blades, they were rarely more than an arms length apart.

Yuuri still moved like a dancer, despite the extra weight. Victor still moved like – well, like Victor Nikiforov, even though he'd now become a nobody called Victor Katsuki. Although tinny Japanese pop spilled from the rink speakers, the phantom music to which they were skating, heard by the two of them alone, was almost palpable. Here was a mature eros of which Christophe Giacometti could only dream. 

They finished with their eyes fixed on Yuri, as if he were a whole panel of judges. Victor, down on one knee on the ice – that final slide had taken him nearly halfway across the rink – was gasping for breath, clearly close to his limit. Yuuri, flushed but steady, stood with his hands proudly on Victor's shoulders and one skate resting on Victor's knee. He held Yuri's gaze in a way that he never did while wearing his glasses. Yuri broke first, looked at Victor instead.

"What do you think?" said Yuuri.

 _I could have guessed,_ thought Yuri, _that this program would end with Victor on his fucking knees. Of course it does._

But he didn't say this. He was polite. "You guys should have warned me that I'd need to take some insulin."

Victor raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, it's very good," added Yuri, "if you like that sort of thing. Lilia would be impressed. You don't do jumps anymore?"

"Not in this program," said Yuuri stolidly. "It's not the point."

Victor looked as if he'd like nothing better than to be sitting on a bench unlacing his skates. Nonetheless he moved Yuuri's skate from his knee, got to his feet and skated off alone. After picking up speed, he did a shitty triple axel, like he wanted to prove that he still could.

"My hero," said Yuri sarcastically.

"Not everything is about doing as many quads as possible," said Victor. 

"Fuck you, old man. You weren't saying that when everyone was calling you King of the Quads."

"I said that to you back when you were just starting Juniors."

"Funny how you remember that part of it!"

Yuuri waved his hands. "Let's not! Can we not? Yuri, he did choreograph that routine for you in the end, didn't he? And Victor, you - you –"

He trailed to a halt.

"Yes?" said Victor, inclining his head. "What were you going to say?"

"You can't try to compete with Yuri, not now. It won't work! It would be a disaster, Victor, I'm sorry but it would." He was giving Victor that weird death stare of his, the one that said _I'm mortified to be saying this but I'm going to do it anyway._ "Can't we just work together on the show now?"

Victor picked up Yuuri's hand and kissed it in wordless apology.

Ignoring the kiss, Yuri saw his opening. "Maybe a little friendly competition, just to make the show more exciting," he suggested, fake casual. "Making it look like we're competing, even though we're not. How about reviving _Onsen on Ice_? You know, Agape versus Eros? We could..."

Yuuri just chuckled and shook his head. "Eros served its purpose."

"Even if it did take a year to deliver," said Victor.

"A year?" said Yuuri indignantly. "We..."

"Winning you gold," replied Victor with a wink. "Of course."

Only Yuri didn't want to leave it at that. He had just won gold at Worlds himself, he had just finished a season of hard training, he might have been older than he used to be but he was still at the top of his form. He wanted to show off. And he wanted Eros for his own, he'd wanted it for a decade. He'd been skating it on and off for a decade, in quiet moments at the rink.

"If neither of you old men will do it," said Yuri, "then I will. I think I remember the steps. I'll try it now."

Who was he kidding? He'd been practicing it for months. He'd spent a good part of the flight studying Yuuri's classic performances on his phone, in preparation for just this moment. Even so, as he was lacing up his skates and doing his warmup, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. As if he weren't the world champion, as if he weren't skating for an audience of two in a shitty local rink in the middle of nowhere in Japan.

He skated it well, although he did triple the quad flip at the end. He wasn't superhuman after all. No way it would have beaten Yuuri at his best, but he was proud of it anyway. He ended with his arm outstretched towards Yuuri and Victor, and they applauded with real enthusiasm. 

"Very eros!" said Victor, beaming. "I can tell you weren't thinking of katsudon."

Yuri had been skating towards them. At Victor's last sentence he came to an ugly stop, his blades digging into the ice. Was Victor making fun of him? Of course he had been thinking of Katsudon. Not the rice bowl, the one standing right in front of him.

"Very _erotic_ ," he snarled. "God, Victor, how many times do I have to tell you, Eros isn't an adjective."

"Of course, very erotic. My English is rusty, I spend so much time speaking Japanese now. But we should definitely put it in the program – don't you think, Yuuri?"

"That was great," said Yuuri. "I never skated it that well."

Yuri snorted. "You skated it a hell of a lot better, Kats – Katsuki. You beat my ass with it all that season, don't you remember? Are you so old that you have memory problems too? Maybe you couldn't do the jumps now, but you still... I saw your footwork out there..."

Even in Russian he would have struggled to find the words to express something that he really didn't want to express. _You used to be my hero, you idiot, haven't you worked it out by now?_

"Maybe," said Yuuri, "if you want to skate it in the show, I could give you a few pointers."

 _Fuck,_ thought Yuri. _He does know. Fuck._

***

A sign outside Yu-topia said, in English, underneath the Japanese characters: _Closed for a private event_.

"What's happening?" asked Yuri, thinking how annoying it was going to be to have to share the place with some salarymen's dinner. Or, worse, a wedding party.

"Your welcome home party, of course!" said Victor, practically dragging him through the door.

"But I only was here for a month..."

No point in protesting. In the big common room of Yu-topia, a whole crowd was already gathered: Hiroko and Toshiya, Mari and her husband, Minako and her wife, Yuuko and Takeshi, and the now-teenaged triplets. They had made a big _Welcome home Yurio_ banner, decorated in leopard print, that looked elaborate enough to be taken with pride to the Olympics. Of course he should have expected something like this, he was visiting Victor and Yuuri after all.

Nothing cheesier and more embarassing could possibly be imagined. Yuri could feel the smile threatening to crack his face. He hugged the people who wanted hugging, and bowed to the people who didn't, and posed for enough pictures in enough different permutations that it might as well have been a wedding party after all. 

It was ages before they finally sat down for dinner.

"Extra-large katsudon," said Victor, placing the steaming, luscious bowl in front of him, "for the world champion."

He laid another bowl, smaller, at his own place.

"And what have you won recently, old man?"

"Oh, I won at life," said Victor smugly. 

Yuri jerked his chin at Yuuri, who in place of katsudon had a plate with salmon, rice and broccoli. "What about you, then? Think you could have done better?"

In response Yuuri smiled ruefully and patted his belly. "I also won at life, but I have to skate an ice show in a month. And I'm not quite committed enough to try Victor's apple diet."

Yuri hooted with laughter. "Oh God, the apple diet! I remember that, he'd be so _cranky_ at the start of every season, and say it was just _getting back into the routine_..." He turned to Victor. "You know you were never fooling anyone with that it-all-comes-naturally-to-me shit."

"You knew me too well," said Victor. "Most people were fooled."

"No one's a natural at skating. I'm certainly not." He looked down at his bowl, at the fork that Victor had laid by its side. "Hey, are you guys out of chopsticks or what?"

His question was lost beneath the voices of the Nishigori triplets, who were already mounting an indignant, vociferous protest in defense of his talents. Axel, Lutz and Loop – had Yuuko known how _stupid_ those names sounded in English? – had been unashamedly giving him fuck-me eyes ever since he'd arrived at Yu-topia, like a private fan meeting of three. Having seventeen-year-old triplet sisters hot for you must have been some man's wet dream, but sadly it was not his. He preferred his lovers older and more... male, when it came down to it. 

But he liked the triplets anyway. They had turned into halfway decent skaters, good enough to scrape into junior nationals at least, although he doubted they would make the transition to the international competitive circuit. They hardly needed to; they were already running the top skating website in Japan.

Yuri picked up his fork and started in on the katsudon. It was as good as he'd remembered – better, even, after the deprivation of a hard season. For a long while he had nothing whatsoever to say for himself. Given his silence, the conversation transitioned predictably into Japanese. Victor chattered away as naturally as he had done in English, his inflections unfamiliarly chirpy. Only _Yuuri_ – which he said approximately every ten words – sounded the same.

 _God,_ thought Yuri, _he sounds like a character from some anime. How horrible._

He'd once come across a Pixiv page – never mind why he was there in the first place – devoted to anime-style fanart of him and Victor together. Like, _together_ together. He had never been that skinny in real life, not even at fifteen. His eyes had never been that big. Sadly his dick wasn't that big even now. And he had never, never aspired to do anything like _that_ with Victor.

Yuri stared at the final grains of rice in the bottom of his bowl and tried to think of something else. Anything else.

"So tell me about this _Three Kings_ thing," he said loudly, interrupting Victor in the middle of yet another mysterious disquisition in which the only word distinguishable was _Yuuri_. Or maybe _Yuri_. Fuck, had Victor been talking about him? Yuri narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"What is there to tell?" said Victor.

"I know you guys are doing – your thing." He gestured vaguely, covering a multitude of sins. "Whatever you usually do. And I'll do a program or two, whatever you like. I might triple some quads, I don't want to train that hard anymore."

"You should do Agape again!" said Loop.

"Never," replied Yuri flatly. "Anything but that. I barely even pulled it off then. It wasn't me."

Victor looked smug. "It's more you now."

"Don't be stupid, Vitya. What I want to know is what else we're going to do. Those group numbers are so cheesy and commercial. Stand around and applaud while the other guy does spins? Shoot me. It's not like we can _triples_ skate."

"But we can!" exclaimed the Nishigori girls in unison.

"We've been practicing..." said Axel.

"We've been doing it for years," said Lutz. "They don't allow it in competition but..."

"We've choreographed a routine for ourselves!" squealed Loop. "And one for you! We'll skate it for you tomorrow..."

"They really are very good choreographers," said Minako, pouring herself more sake. "But then they learned from the best."

She meant herself, obviously. Yuri approved of her ego.

Yuuri smiled like an indulgent uncle. "They think naturally in threes. They've come up with ideas that Victor and I never would have considered."

"It's new to the skating world," said Victor. "We'll be making history! Again!"

" _Triples_ skating," Yuri said in flat disbelief. "Not some sort of bullshit ice show thing that looks like you're all doing the Macarena in unison?"

"Triples skating," Victor confirmed, entirely seriously.

"Kill me now," said Yuri. "You're not paying me enough for this. I want danger money. I've never even done pairs."

Victor rested his chin on his hand. "I seem to remember you practicing elements with Mila all the time, back in the day."

"That wasn't fucking pairs skating, it wasn't even ice dancing, Vitya, she just picked me up and skated around the rink with me! Non-consensually! You know that. Come on, do you have any idea how hard this is going to be to learn? And do well? Within two months?"

"I think he likes the idea," said Yuuri. And he was right.

***

As dinner was being cleared away, Yuuri took Yuri aside. He explained, face pink with embarrassment, that they would be able to use the _onsen_ together tonight, but only because Yu-topia was closed to the public for the evening. Yuri couldn't go into the _onsen_ during ordinary hours. The tattoos that he'd acquired over the past decade were too large to cover up, and too blatant for even the tolerant Katsuki family to gracefully pretend not to notice.

"Yeah," said Yuri, "my tattoos are too awesome for the populace. I knew it already: Yakov always made me cover them up in competition, hadn't you spotted that? Not a big deal."

Yuuri finally relaxed, losing that super-intense death stare that he got when he was really worked up about something. "You're sure?"

"Sure. You don't want Russian gangsters messing up your squeaky-clean image, I get it. Not everyone appreciates great art. Remind me to show you my _Cat Looks at Mount Fuji_. I just had it done last year. You'll like it."

" _Asakusa tambo Torinomachi môde_ ," said Yuuri. "Asakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi Festival. That's what it's called. It shows a room in a brothel; the cat stands in for the prostitute."

"Really? You're making fun of me."

"No, really. I studied art history at university."

"Katsudon, you're full of surprises."

Shit. He'd forgotten he wasn't meant to use Yuri's nickname. He held his breath, awaiting some dire retribution. Victor would throttle him if he found out.

But Yuuri just smiled and patted him a little awkwardly on the back. By Yuuri's standards of demonstrativeness – with anyone other than Victor – it was practically a kiss with added tongue.

"I'd missed you calling me that," Yuuri said. "Let's go and get in the baths."

***

Yuri lingered on the edge of the pool, hands on hips, towel hanging from one hand. He had a feeling that his figure was not too far off what Victor's used to be, in glorious days of yore – their builds were not that dissimilar, despite his stubbornly lacking three centimetres of height – and he wanted to make the point. How angry he'd been as a teenager, that Victor was a _man_ when he was still only a boy, and seemingly always rubbing it in his face.

Victor gave him a look of entirely abstract appreciation. "Yes, very nice. That tiger chest piece really does it for you. Come on, get in."

"You know I came here on the understanding that you'd been grooming me for the past fifteen years and you were finally about to deliver."

Victor clicked his tongue. "Get in."

Yuuri was looking down, busy elaborately folding his towel. Yuri sighed. He got in.

It was much better than he remembered it, the hot spring, touching the aches and pains of twenty-six in a way that he'd failed to appreciate when he was fifteen. God, he had his grandfather's back, and probably two decades earlier than his grandfather had started suffering from it. That was skating for you.

Yuri leaned back, submerging himself up to the neck. _Groomed as Victor's successor,_ he thought, remembering how odd the expression had seemed when he was a boy learning English by watching the Eurosport commentary on his own programs. It had conjured up images of being licked into shape by Yakov and Victor, as if he were a baby kitten. Weirdly, in retrospect, that had probably been just about accurate. 

"You've taken your bodyfat a little lower than I would have done," Victor continued, musing, "but then you're doing jump combinations that I never did."

"It's brutal," said Yuri. "You have no idea. I wasn't going to do another fucking season, not with some loser coaching me instead of Yakov."

"I would have coached you."

"Yeah, what I said. Some loser."

Victor inclined his head in gracious acknowledgment of the fact that he was, in fact, a shitty coach. It said something for his level of insight that, once Yuuri had retired, he had taken up choreography and ice shows instead.

"Also," Yuri added, "quitting now is better for my back."

Victor made a sympathetic face. He'd had his own troubles. "Oh?"

"I mean, I'm still hoping to avoid surgery. Or put it off till I'm actually old and washed up."

"My age, you mean?"

Yuri grinned. "Yeah, I said. Old."

Victor cast a half admiring, half envious look at Yuuri. " _He_ has no back problems. At all. Never has."

"If anyone should have a bad back," said Yuuri, a little pink and not just because of the hot water, "it's me."

"This is such bullshit, Katsudon, you shouldn't feel guilty because Vitya isn't perfect. Have some pride!"

"Anyway," said Victor, "this is why it makes sense that Yuuri should do most of the throws and lifting, and you should do most of the throw jumps. For the triples skating."

Yuri's brain took a little while to catch up with this, short-circuited by his attempt to work out the combination. "You want _me_ – you want me and Katsudon to do throws, Vitya? You want us to do, like, actual pairs stuff? Together?"

"It was my idea," said Yuuri. "Actually."

"Because that makes it so much better."

He'd meant to speak sarcastically – he was pretty certain that he _had_ spoken sarcastically – but, in a strange way, it did make it a little better.

"Good," said Yuuri. "We can start practicing in the morning."

Victor yawned, leaned his head against Yuuri's. "Speak for yourself. I intend to drink till dawn with Yura while we wallow embarrassingly in our past glories."

Yuri shook his head. "Speak for yourself. I'm just going to drink."

"Maybe the day after tomorrow," Yuuri allowed.

"This pool is too hot," said Yuri. "Let's go and sit in the other one."

_It's the pool, isn't it? Yeah, it's a hot pool, it's practically boiling._

Yuri stood up, grabbing his towel. The chilly spring air felt good on his skin, a sweet shock to the system. Victor and Yuuri followed him. For a little while they were all busy making the move and settling into the other pool.

A companionable silence reigned. Victor put his arm around Yuuri's shoulder, but not in an obnoxious way. Yuri tipped his head back, looking up at the few stars that showed even in the midst of the city lights.

"I thought it was going to be weird," he said finally, after a long while. "Being back here."

Yuuri frowned thoughtfully. "And is it?"

"It's weird that it isn't weird."

"Is that a compliment?" said Victor. "I think it's a compliment from Yura, after all these years! My heart is warmed!"

"Maybe," said Yuri. "Maybe it is."

_God, you know it's a compliment, he knows it's a compliment, why can't you just say so?_

He wondered why on earth being around these two always turned him into a teenager again. He was a grown man, multiple World Champion, double Olympic gold medalist. He was now almost as old as Victor had been, back when he'd left for Hasetsu for the first time. Did he not have anything else to show for it, all those years of hard work and the bad back as well?

 _I have friends,_ he thought, looking at Yuuri and Victor. But then, he'd had friends then too. He just hadn't realised it yet.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering about Victor and Yuuri's physical capacity as skaters... Evgeni Plushenko was apparently [still doing triple axels](https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/index.php?threads/kings-on-ice-tallin-18-10-2015.96675/) in his ice show in 2015. (Victor is a few years older here, but this is the YoI universe.) And Brian Orser could still [land a backflip](https://youtu.be/_SHpQH4A00U?t=2m50s) at 49, despite being not exactly thin.
> 
> Victor's ice show is of course inspired by Plushenko's Kings on Ice, AKA [Four Kings](https://youtu.be/WAsfKt_RV9k?t=1m).
> 
> The tattoo Yuri discusses with Yuuri is, of course, based on [this woodblock print](http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/asakusa-ricefields-and-torinomachi-festival-asakusa-tanbo-torinomachi-m%C3%B4de-from-the-series-one-hundred-famous-views-of-edo-meisho-edo-hyakkei-237122) by Hiroshige.


End file.
